It is a busy couple of weeks for blogging crew. For those wanting a fix of tax administrative news pending our next substantive post, we recommend taking a look at the GAO report 2021 Performance Underscores Need for IRS to Address Persistent Challenges. Released yesterday, the report evaluates IRS’s performance on (1) processing tax returns during the 2021 filing season and (2) providing customer service to taxpayers. The report has lots to offer and plenty of data around challenges IRS faced. For example:
The report also includes GAO recommendations:
1) IRS should assess underlying causes for tax return errors and address them, as appropriate and feasible, with input from internal and external stakeholders.
2) IRS should assess reasons for refund interest payments and report on the reasons for increased interest payments;
3) IRS should take steps to reduce the amount of refund interest paid for those cases within IRS’s control;
4) IRS modernize its “Where’s My Refund” application;
5) IRS address its backlog of correspondence; and
6) IRS assess its in-person service model.
IRS agreed with most of the recommendations but pushed back on two, saying that its process for analyzing errors is robust and that the amount of interest paid is not a meaningful business measure.
We will be returning to this report and discuss it in detail.
About Leslie Book
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